Karen's Blog has moved

In preparation for the book version of Karen's blog, I have moved Karen's blog to a different site that allowed me to get the blog in a "read from start to finish" format.

The new address of the blog is

http://www.karensstory.com

If you wait 1 minute, you will be automatically redirected there.

This will take you straight to the blog.

There will be no further blog entries on this blog ! All new blog entries will be on the new version.

Day 359 - Saturday 22nd April 2006

Uneventful Day.

kp didn't think she would sleep last night, having slept a lot yesterday, but she was asleep from 10pm until 12pm (14 hours) with no commode trips. So she must have needed it.

We went round to the post box to post a cheque to some ebayer Karen has bought some makeup off. Lucky I checked the envelope, as the address read something like this :-

Mr John Smith
Surbiton
London
NW14

She had missed the house number and street off and half the postcode. We chuckled about it, but at the same time, she does realise that she "can't be trusted with things like that" (her words)

On our return, we dropped in at Eileen's and played with her grandkids for 20 minutes or so. Adele has just arrived and no doubt it will be pizza tonight

Day 358 - Friday 21st April 2006

Well, today was the day of Angela's funeral. Karen didn't feel strong enough to attend, but did think about it and her thoughts were with her family.

Very uneventful day. Cleo is very subdued and has been, since taking the antibiotics :-( This has affected Karen's mood and she is quite quiet today. kp has been asleep all day apart from 11am to 1pm, and has been up since about 4pm, but is now back asleep (5.30pm).

She is in a surprising amount of pain today. Neither of us were expecting that, but the hydrotherapy must be more intense than she realises at the time.

Tomorrow, Adele is coming up, so that may well cheer her up. And then we have the Take That concert on Sunday and a busy week next week, so hopefully there is enough distraction there to keep her occupied and not thinking too down.

Day 357 - Thursday 20th April 2006

kp didn't have a good sleep last night, so I didn't wake her until I had to, which was, in time to go to Hydrotherapy.

Hydrotherapy - she loved it. Unfortunately, I wasn't allowed in :-( Understandable, because there were other patients in there, but a real kick in the teeth, as I have been able to follow her recovery 100% until then.

Sounds like she had a lovely lady to guide her through the moves. One of the things kp wants to be able to do, is to be able to bend down on her knees. At the moment, they don't bend enough for that, so I think she did some exercises to help towards that.

Anyway, she really enjoyed it, the water was apparently a lovely temperature.

Once home, we snoozed for an hour until the "bathroom man" came to measure up.

That's our jam-packed day ;-)

Day 356 - Wednesday 19th April 2006

Well, we decided on an early night last night, but all the best made plans of mice and men etc....

Cleo had been licking her bad leg all day. And just as we were about to retire, we could smell a really bad smell. On further investigation, cleo's swollen tumour had split open and you could see down to the muscle. Not a pretty sight and the smell was pervasive.

So, we got out some old bandages and gave her a good clean and bandaged her up. After getting hooked on a show on tv, it was 12am before we retired.

In the morning, the bandages had been torn off by Cleo and the smell was even worse - a vet trip was in order.

kp got up at 2pm and we enjoyed breakfast outside, but were mindful that we could be taking Cleo in to get her "put to sleep". I took some photos of the dogs, thinking it could be the last time Cleo and Elsa (sisters) were together.



Here is kp waiting at the vets.



We were worrying for nothing about Cleo. The vet said her skin had ulcerated and set her on a course of antibiotics. Phew !

That's it for today. When home, we went to the shop to post a letter and get some groceries in. Here is kp on the return.



Hydrotherapy tomorrow.

Day 355 - Tuesday 18th April 2006

kp had an awful night's sleep last night. I got this email from her this morning when i woke up.....

"it is645 and just coming to bed awful night got up at 1am came back at 4.30and never went back to sleepso got up at 6.30 let dogs out and here we are.there is a smell off cleo were she has beenlicking but couldnt see snything it needs a better look but i couldnt get down enough to see"

Poor cow.

I let her lie in until 1pm. Whilst she was sleeping, I prepared her next 4 week's tablets. I left the current week's tablet out for her by the fridge, and piled her other 3 week's tablets in a pile on the right hand side.

I have just noticed that she has been taking tablets from the wrong pile, completely ignoring the tray of tablets I had left out for her on the left hand side. You'd think I would have cottoned on to this neglect thing by now !

Once kp was up, we had breakfast and went to Costco to stock up. We enjoyed a nice shop and had an early tea on our return.

That's it for today. Apart from a word about Cleo. There was an awful smell coming from her left leg. I had a good look, and she has the biggest of blisters where her hugely enlarged left leg has been rubbing against her right (active) leg. We had enough dressings/bandages from previous dog episodes to clean the wound up and bandage her up.

Doesn't she look fetching ?

Day 354 - Monday 17th April 2006

Today has been a "reminder of Karen's stroke" day. It's not been a bad day, don't get me wrong, but a few stroke related things have popped up.

kp got up early today, about 10am. I was amazed, but pleased.

We had our usual breakfast outside. kp buttered her own toast today, but she doesn't like doing it, because it reminds her how hard it is with only one controlled hand. What is interesting (to me) is how she cut the toast. Bear in mind, kp neglects her left field of vision. She doesn't see 1/8th (of the left) of what we see. It shows itself in her cutting of the toast.

She would think she cut the toast in the middle, but as the picture shows (which she has no idea I took), she was quite a bit off. She thinks the left hand side of the toast is closer to the right than it actually is. Notice also the butter on her left finger (highlighted). I only spotted this just now when I am writing the blog, but I guarantee that butter is probably still on her finger, or all over the furniture, because of the reduced sensation in her left arm/hand. It's something the family is aware of and we look out for certain things from time to time, but these are shareable examples.



Today, she wasn't quite herself however.

During our breakfast conversation, she was trying to get a sentence out, but couldn't find the word "depends". She could say the sentence in a different way, but it was really frustrating her that she couldn't pick the word out.

kp:- I feel like everything is in slow motion.

So, after breakfast, on my suggestion, she went back to bed to get some extra zzzz's. She got up about 3pm and we have had a nice afternoon doing very little.

That's it for today.

Day 353 - Sunday 16th April 2006

Lovely day today. kp in good mood despite nothing on.

kp was up at 11am. We had a lovely breakfast outside and then she made a few phonecalls (lasting 2 hours), whilst I carried on the work on the blog (the book version).

Here's a little thing that I found today whilst going through Karen's medical notes and I suppose it's a snippet preview of the book version.....



kp then went to sleep after her phone calls until 5pm, whilst I mowed the lawn.

That's it for today.

Day 352 - Saturday 15th April 2006

Today was "Easter Egg Hunt Day at Maries".

kp was up a couple of times in the night, but otherwise had a good night's sleep. On the way to Marie's, we popped in to a bathroom showroom in Middlesbrough for a good mooch round at various bathroom setups.

Once at Marie's, we tucked into the lovely buffet lunch Marie had laid on, before the Easter Egg Hunt was on. Four kids (Abbie(8), Ethan(7), Louisa(2) and David(12)). I was looking forward to SHARING some chocolate with the kids. Unfortunately, David(11) gets hyperactive on chocolate so there was no easter eggs to hunt, only toys. Well, I was polite and didn't spit my dummy out at the fact there was no chocolate.

Here is the family picture........



The kids enjoyed finding the toys. Marie could see I was a bit miffed there was no chocolate and as if by magic, a galaxy bar appeared in front of me :-)

The toys Marie had got provided us with a cracking afternoon's entertainment and the kids enjoyed it too. She had got them these big blowup England-themed football hammers that you blow up. There were 4 of them. I was knackered after blowing 2 of them up (must cut down on the fags).

The kids had a whale of a time with the hammers. But soon the adults were being battered by the kids. That's when it all changed. The adults took over and took their revenge.

Adele was the first to come a cropper from the kids, but she took no prisoners and was beating the merry hell out of any kid who came close, including her own daughter.

I overheard someone threatening to call Social Services, but it was an idle threat.

Michelle helped Abbie beat the boys....


Abbie was tired, so Michelle and Adele took the boys on......


Michelle fought hard...


I was trying to avoid being hit, but hiding behind Karen only wins a bit of time. Ethan came for me, but I grabbed the hammer and showed him how strong 25 year olds can be....


Louisa was unimpressed.....


It was a really good afternoon. kp was flagging about halfway through, so we took Ethan and Chris home, before driving back to Durham.

Lovely Day !

Day 351 - Friday 14th April 2006

Cracking day today.

We were expecting the worst given kp's speed walking yesterday, but she managed to overcome the pain to enjoy a good day.

She didn't get up until 1.50pm and needed help getting out of bed. It reminded us of the days when I used to have to pull her up from the bed every time.

Once up, we enjoyed breakfast outside in the glorious bank holiday weather. We had planned a few things today because a day with nothing on can be very demoralising for kp. Today, it was "walk a dog", plan a bathroom design and watch "Acorn Antiques - the musical" on dvd.

We changed walking a dog to walking 3 dogs. The dogs thought they were heaven with a second walk in the middle of the day :-)

Here is kp with Cleo. I actually walked the 3 dogs, but gave her Cleo for the photo. Elsa got the blog camera time last time ! :-)



kp wanted to make the walk longer so we ended up doing about 1/2 a mile. On the way back, kp had to do a 6 foot stretch of the walk at a 45' angle. It knacked her (kp 's words). If that had been at the beginning of the walk, we would have gone straight home. She really struggled and I had to put all my weight behind her to get her up.

Very nice walk.

With the walk over, we went straight into bathroom planning. That kept us both mentally taxed for 30 minutes.

We then went outside with the dogs in the back garden to enjoy a lager and lager shandy for 30 minutes.

Here's the dogs ...........



and here's kp...........



By this stage, kp's every movement was causing her pain, so she had to retire

kp:- I am not going to sleep, I just need to rest my body.

I nearly spat my drink out.

Well, I can hear snoring from the next room, but I can't say I am surprised.

That's it for today

Acorn Antiques tonight